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Voted one of the Top
10 Environmental News Stories
of 2003 by Citizens' Institute for Environmental
Studies, KFEM Institute, Friends of the Earth Korea,
and Green Foundation
October 9, 2003-9
Copyright © 2003 Earth Policy Institute
RECORD HEAT WAVE IN EUROPE TAKES 35,000
LIVES
Far Greater Losses May Lie Ahead
Janet Larsen
A record heat wave scorched Europe
in August 2003, claiming an estimated 35,000 lives. In France alone,
14,802 people died from the searing temperatures—more
than 19 times the death toll from the SARS epidemic worldwide. In
the worst heat spell in decades, temperatures in France soared to
104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) and remained unusually
high for two weeks.
This summer's high temperatures also hit other European countries.
Germany saw some 7,000 people die from the heat. Spain and Italy
each suffered heat-related losses of nearly 4,200 lives. The heat
wave claimed at least 1,300 lives in Portugal and up to 1,400 lives
in the Netherlands.
In London—which
on August 10th recorded its first triple-digit Fahrenheit temperature—an
estimated 900 people died from the heat. Heat-related fatalities
across the United Kingdom reached 2,045. In Belgium, temperatures
higher than any in the Royal Meteorological Society's register dating
back to 1833 brought 150 deaths. Since reports are not yet available
for all European countries, the total heat death toll for the continent
is likely to be substantially larger. (See data.)
August 2003 was the warmest August on record in the northern hemisphere,
but according to the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), even more extreme weather events lie ahead.
By the end of the century, the world's average temperature is projected
to increase by 2.5-10.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4-5.8 degrees Celsius).
As the mercury climbs, more frequent and more severe heat waves
are in store.
Though heat waves rarely are given adequate attention, they claim
more lives each year than floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined.
Heat waves are a silent killer, mostly affecting the elderly, the
very young, or the chronically ill.
Under normal circumstances, humans maintain a body temperature around
98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When subject to extreme heat, the body
attempts to maintain this ideal temperature by varying blood circulation
and perspiring. When the internal body temperature rises above 104
degrees Fahrenheit, vital organs are at risk. If the body temperature
is not brought down, death follows.
The threshold ambient temperature at which more people are at risk
for heat-related health problems varies greatly by location. In
general, when summer temperatures range 10 degrees Fahrenheit or
more above the norm, incidences of heat-related illness increase
dramatically. High humidity compounds the effects of high heat by
reducing evaporation, rendering perspiration a less-effective cooling
mechanism. When excessive heat prevails for more than two consecutive
days, the risk of heat sickness and death escalates. Health and
social services may be overwhelmed.
Heat waves take the greatest human toll in cities. Urban centers,
where the area of heat-absorbing dark roofs and pavement exceeds
the area covered by cooling vegetation, are like "heat islands"
and can be as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding
countryside. While people in rural areas generally get some relief
from the heat when temperatures fall at night, urban areas stay
warmer around the clock. Air pollution, which usually is worse in
cities than in the countryside, can also exacerbate the health-damaging
effects of high temperatures by further stressing the body's respiratory
and circulatory systems.
Several of the worst heat waves of the twentieth century occurred
in U.S. cities. In 1955, an eight-day run of temperatures over 100
degrees Fahrenheit in Los Angeles left 946 people dead. In 1972,
New York City suffered a two-week heat wave that claimed 891 lives.
More recently, an extreme heat wave in Chicago in 1995 killed 739
people in a matter of days. Slow political recognition of the threat
and an overloaded response system worsened the effects of the weather
anomaly.
A lack of public recognition of the danger that high temperatures
pose adds to the lethality of heat waves. Heat wave warnings often
do not carry the weight of other natural disaster alerts. Except
during major outbreaks, heat-related deaths often go unreported,
and few governments systematically keep records of them.
Even once a heat wave has passed, politicians are reluctant to acknowledge
its toll. Chicago's mayor denied the severity of the city's 1995
heat wave. In Europe, it took over a month for France's government
to release heat wave fatality estimates that corroborated estimates
from overwhelmed undertakers. Several neighboring governments are
still challenging reports from medical examiners.
Even in India, where heat-related fatalities in the thousands during
pre-monsoonal high temperatures are no longer uncommon, the National
Disaster Management Cell does not classify heat waves as a natural
disaster. While accurate data are hard to come by, it appears that
India has seen the number of deaths due to heat climb over the years
as populations have grown and temperatures have risen. In May 2003,
peak temperatures of 113-117 degrees Fahrenheit (45-49 degrees Celsius)
claimed over 1,600 lives throughout the country. In the state of
Andhra Pradesh alone, some 1,200 people died from the heat. A year
earlier, a one-week heat wave with temperatures topping 122 degrees
Fahrenheit took over 1,000 lives.
Over the last 25 years the average global temperature rose by 1
degree Fahrenheit, or 0.6 degrees Celsius. The IPCC's projected
rise in temperature for this century is a global average, but the
temperature is expected to rise more over land, where people live,
than over sea. As temperatures continue to climb, the toll of heat
waves in individual countries could jump from the thousands to the
tens of thousands. The World Meteorological Organization estimates
that the number of heat-related fatalities could double in less
than 20 years.
Already we are seeing evidence of more frequent heat waves. In India,
death tolls from heat that were recorded over an entire summer some
10 years ago are now occurring in just one week. In the United States,
a 1998 study of summertime temperatures using data from 1949 to
1995 found that the frequency of extremely hot and humid days and
the occurrence of multiple-day heat waves increased significantly
during that period. Some of the increase is due to urbanization,
a trend that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.
Although the historical data for heat waves leave much to be desired,
we can say with confidence that the August heat wave in Europe has
broken all records for heat-induced human fatalities. As awareness
of the scale of this tragedy spreads, it is likely to generate pressure
to reduce carbon emissions. For many of the millions who suffered
through these record heat waves and the relatives of the tens of
thousands who died, cutting carbon emissions is becoming a pressing
personal issue.
Copyright
© 2003 Earth Policy Institute
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FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
From Earth Policy Institute
Lester R. Brown, Plan
B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble
(New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003).
Lester R. Brown, Janet Larsen, and Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts,
The
Earth Policy Reader (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002).
Lester R. Brown, Eco-Economy:
Building an Economy for the Earth (New York: W.W. Norton
& Company, 2001).
Lester R. Brown, "Global Temperature Near Record
for 2002," Eco-Economy Update,
11 December 2002.
From Other Sources
David R. Easterling, et al., "Climate Extremes:
Observations, Modeling, and Impacts," Science, vol. 289 (22
September 2000), pp. 2068-74.
Dian J. Gaffen and Rebecca J. Ross, "Increased Summertime
Heat Stress in the U.S.," Nature, vol. 396 (10 December 1998).
Additional information available at http://www.arl.noaa.gov
/milestn/mile3.html.
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center, Earth Sciences Directorate, "Global Temperature
Anomalies in .01 C," http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate
Change 2001: The Scientific Basis; Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability;
and Mitigation. Contributions of Working Group I, II, and III to
the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press).
Text and summaries of each report available at http://www.ipcc.ch.
LINKS
The Center for Climatic Research's Synoptic Climatology
Lab
http://www.udel.edu/SynClim
Environmental Protection Agency's Heat Island Page
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar
/globalwarming.nsf/content
/ActionsLocalHeatIslandEffect.html
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http://www.ipcc.ch
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Heat Wave
Awareness Project
http://www.esig.ucar.edu
/heat/index.html
National Climatic Data Center
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov
/oa/ncdc.html
National Weather Service, Office of Climate, Water,
and Weather Services, Natural Hazard Statistics
http://www.nws.noaa.gov
/om/hazstats.shtml
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
National Center for Environmental Health, Extreme Heat Page
http://www.cdc.gov/nceh
/hsb/extremeheat
Worldwatch Institute
http://www.worldwatch.org
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